Home opener of Kalamazoo Wings' 40th season to feature festive orange ice

KALAMAZOO, MI — Wings Stadium dressed in a Halloween mask of its own as a crew
sprayed the rink orange at midnight Thursday.

Fans are encouraged to dress
up in Halloween costumes, too, for Saturday's home opener at 7:30 p.m., as the
Kalamazoo Wings (0-1-0-0) look for
their first victory of their 40th season.

"They (paint the ice) for the
fan base," said Bill Cavanaugh, a maintenance worker at the stadium.

With 1 liter of specially
made ice paint, the entire rink was covered in a matter of minutes by four crew
members.

To start, a 100-gallon drum
was filled with water. Slowly, resin and the carrot-like pigment swirled into
the mixer.

The concoction runs through a
long hose hooked up to the main water supply and fills a "wand" that feeds 14
nozzles, which spray a fine mist about a foot off the surface.

"It's kind of like when you
turn on your garden hose and it spreads," Cavanaugh said. "Then we'll keep
walking (with the wand) until the whole thing is covered."

After the solution was coated
evenly, several layers of water were added to the 10-degree rink.

As a finishing touch, nine
mesh pumpkin "drop-ins" were placed and spread onto the faceoff circles and
around center ice. Lastly, the rink was flooded for a remaining half inch on
top of the festive color.

"It's different," Cavanaugh
said when asked if he enjoyed tinted ice. "(For the players), I don't know
about the pink or the orange, but on the green, it's hard to see a puck. They
complain about that some."

Wings Stadium is best known
for its St. Patrick's Day green ice, an annual tradition. Besides this weekend's
orange, this season will also feature pink for Valentine's Day and for a Komen
breast cancer game the day after.

Last Saturday, the K-Wings lost 2-0 to the Evansville IceMen (1-0-0-0)
in their season opener. The
K-Wings were shut out just once the entire season last year.